IanTheM1

I suppose that does make more sense. I still disagree though, since it's the only Tsoo badge available.

No thanks to either. Raising requirements = bad. I'm not sure why Porters or any Rikti would count towards a badge for killing Lost bosses.

I was actually probably going to give the MA maps a look when I got the chance, but I'm incapable of testing the TF itself.

Yes, thank you, and did you bother to check /whereami for what maps you were actually on? Did you check if anything changed with the radar maps in the MA?

And there's still no information about this nebulous "meaner mobs" thing.

I did in fact see your post the first time, but there's still several unanswered questions.

Clearly you weren't on the same page to begin with. We were discussing a theoretical cause for the bug. It was a hypothetical example and nothing more. I'm well aware that it's not the entirety of the real issue.

(Of course, even having read the other thread cited, I'm still plenty shaky as to the extent of the bug, since it's about as vague as this one.)

So, to repeat, do you honestly expect them or us, to chew through every single mission in the game with a glowie in it?

Anything less than that would've potentially let the bug go live anyway, and this thread would've been created either way.

No. Due to time pressures they should not ask people to test things which have been confirmed as working or are assumed to be properly working. This is an extension of my example a few posts back.

Given the choice, do you tell people to smash up Power Customization to iron out all the bugs and oversights in your new system, or do you send them on a wild goose chase because "glowies might've changed maybe even though we don't think they did"?

Arguably, very. Considering pressures to finalize issues and close out code branches, and the need to keep testers focused on issues they know need testing for sure, at least.

I'm not saying that a proactive approach to bug finding/fixing would be a bad thing, but I also think it would be naive to assume it wouldn't have its own flaws.

And again, if it was an under-the-hood change, not meant to display any outward alteration, why disseminate that information to the beta testers at all? Especially since, as I stressed in my example, there was no flaw or bug to be seen?

This methodology is flawed, because you're asking the devs to say "hey, we changed glowies" and let the populace test for bugs. Whether they test internally or with our help, it matters little since there's a lot of freakin' glowies in the game. Finding a needle in a haystack that large just isn't feasible.

Both of the ones I highlighted were mentioned by BABs as being things that were fixed. Likely, they didn't make it into the patch notes due to lack of relevance or because of their scope. The former affected terrain game-wide, the latter was a part of a laundry list of animation bugs fixed by BABs.

Moreover, and perhaps I'm simply being pedantic, I consider changelogs and patch notes to be two separate, if similar, beasts. I'll fully agree that we could use a better listing of changes, but I could also understand well why some things don't always end up on them.

Not to mention that there are many different links in the chain that could cause exclusions from the notes. I recall the occasional note being in dispute because QA couldn't replicate it.

That's whereabouts where I stand as well, actually, though I'm leaning more towards "someone accidentally saved one map file over another".

The bulk of my criticisms have been aimed squarely at the reactions seen in this thread, many of which appear to be ready to vilify the devs over a simple bug. Or at least demand a new level of refinement in the beta testing process that just isn't feasible, or some cases literally impossible.

Let's keep in mind that the game is five years old, and the folks working on it aren't necessarily the same ones who designed the original code. If you've read any of BABs' posts, you've seen how quirks and glitches can spiderweb outward unexpectedly in a system.

What I find much more realistic (though do not necessarily believe is true, mind you), is that if, for example, a change was made to glowies when someone altered the system, they then checked a handful of missions (or mocked up a few testbed ones) to make sure nothing exploded due to their changes, and then simply overlooked how their change broke three particular missions.

The expectation wraps back around to the two impossible ideals expressed earlier in the thread that either the devs should check every single iteration of anything ever to ensure bugs don't crop up when they make a change, or that they should meticulously map out a delicate spiderweb of systems and code and simply just know what will affect what, always, at all times.

Come back to me when you've got word that the change was intentional. Also thanks for overlooking the fact that I'm well-willing to criticize them for changes that don't make it into the patch notes, I just don't assign motives for why they happen.

To reiterate, it's regrettable that undocumented changes occasionally slip through, and it's something to be avoided for sure, but it's not something the devs are purposefully doing. Why is it so difficult to assume that the reason why it wasn't documented was because the devs were never aware of it?

Do you understand what a bug is?

And as I've previously said, them telling you anything about what they changed is pointless, since the root cause of a problem could easily be unrelated (or at least merely tangentially related) to what was actually changed.

Then I'd have to wonder what the purpose of raising that objection was in the first place, since as mentioned previously in this thread, the devs are well aware that undocumented yet intentional changes are foolish and would amount to nothing. Not to mention that it ignores the probability of a bug being a bug (or perhaps even an honest mistake), rather than a clandestine attempt to destroy the Hess TF as we know it.

What I'm saying is, objecting to undocumented/intentional changes is much like me coming out to object to the devs threatening to blow up the world - pointless, because there was no intention to in the first place. If you'd like to criticize their patch notes process, I can get behind that, since there have been clear failures of it in the past.

I would love to know how you got that from what I posted. On the contrary, it sounds like that's what you expect of the devs.

You seem to be hung up on the idea that the change to Hess was some sort of intentional alteration gone awry, and clearly should've been communicated to us to test. Except that our buddy Occam notes that seeing as how the glowies are bugged, and there was no patch note concerning it, it probably wasn't intentional at all. The devs can't make you aware of a change if they themselves are unaware of it.

What are you looking for? Are you asking the devs to publish a complete and thorough changelog to the game with each patch sent to the Test Server? Do you understand how time consuming, and in many cases redundant or confusing, that would be?

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contradicts